The Center of Our Lives

Christ, be the center of our lives
be the place we fix our eyes
be the center of our lives

These are the lyrics to a song that we sang in the closing session of COAT training, when we took communion. Each snippet of these lyrics has become more real to me over the last week (each italicized section of this post is part of that same song, "Center").

The snippet above especially hit home with me during a few of the last days at COAT, when I kept hurting people's feelings unintentionally. I really hate it when I see people hurt each other's feelings (I have a strong desire to protect people I care about) and I hate it even more when I am the one that has hurt people. I hate that I have the capacity to do that. I hate that my sin affects others....cause that's what it is. When I hurt other people, it pretty much means that I'm not fixing my eyes on Christ and instead am focused on self-preservation, insecurity, pride, etc. I don't want to be that kind of girl. Pray that I'd fix my eyes on Christ! Always!

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around Your life
We lift our eyes to heaven
To You

This snippet makes me think of our final session/the communion service at the end of COAT. In essence, COAT was an intense and continual challenge to wrap our lives around Jesus, so that we were no longer at the center of everything and He was. That is really, really hard to do. That's submission and faith in God's provision, goodness, power... That's exactly why I am going to move back to Florida and work in the NMSI office before deploying to a foreign country. I want to spend some time figuring out how to wrap my life around God and have him be the center of everything, all the time.

You hold everything together
You hold everything together

This snippet (I think I really like the word "snippet"...I don't usually use it!) reminds me of my first Sunday back in St. Louis. A friend's car broke down on the way to church and me and two other guys stuck around after church to help him out. I was amazed at how God provided for each need and how perfect his timing was. He literally held everything together that afternoon. (And no, I don't have mad car mechanic skills if you were wondering, but I did have a car that was working to transport people where they needed to go.)

Ways God Made Himself Evident:
1. The car broke down less than 3 miles from church.
2. The guy whose car broke down got to church in the "in between time" between 9 and 10:30 services, meaning some people who went to each service were able to help/know about the problem.
3. I had taken a different car to church than the people I am living with, so the husband of that couple was free to stay and help instead of needing to leave with his wife and infant.
4. AAA tows for free within 3 miles. One of us had an AAA card with us.
5. We had jumper cables in the car and didn't end up needing AAA.
6. The guys could look at the car and knew which part was broken.
7. The guys knew where an AutoZone was nearby, so we could get the alternator tested.
8. We had one broken car, one motorcycle, and one working car, so we could all pack in the working car and had a way to travel together to AutoZone.
9. AutoZone let us borrow tools to take out the alternator.
10. Ripley's had an alternator that cost less than AutoZone.
11. One of the guys had taken out an alternator in his car before and knew what he was doing.
12. In the midst of all this, a couple from church was babysitting the kids of the guy whose car broke down.

That's TWELVE ways I saw God working in a few short hours! That's a good reminder that I can trust God's timing and provision in support raising (I'm a little nervous)! That's a great example of the body of Christ---dropping everything to help someone in need! Wow!